


Land of Steady Habits

by plastics



Category: Oh Hello - Kroll & Mulaney
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Canon-Typical Behavior, Drug Use, M/M, Unhealthy Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-25
Updated: 2020-12-25
Packaged: 2021-03-11 05:15:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,586
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28309596
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/plastics/pseuds/plastics
Summary: George gets an assignment that takes them out of the city.Or; fear and loathing in the tri-state area.
Relationships: Gil Faizon/George St. Geegland
Comments: 7
Kudos: 12
Collections: Yuletide 2020





	Land of Steady Habits

**Author's Note:**

  * For [attheborder](https://archiveofourown.org/users/attheborder/gifts).



> As hinted at in the summary, this is a fast and loose Fear and Loathing In Las Vegas AU (or pre-canon, if you want to get messy with the timelines). I've added some additional warnings in the end notes; none are more intense than they were in either of the canons, imo, and I did intend for this to be a comedy, so none of it is treated too seriously, but they're there.
> 
> Happy Yuletide, attheborder, I had a lot of fun with these two and I hope this fits with what you wanted.

They’d already pulled onto the Connecticut Turnpike before Gil revealed that, like every other through-the-concrete-grown New Yorker, he did not know how to drive.

“Are you fucking me, Faizon?” George yelled. The windows were rolled up to protect them from what had just crossed over from a Mid-Atlantic winter into a New England one, but the wind still blew loudly in George’s ears and Gil had a tape of that godforsaken _Joy To The World_ song playing quite loudly, over and over again, tears in his eyes—at one point, it had seemed clever to get a tape recorder with a cassette player built in, but the day had long past—and it was important that George be heard. “You thought you could just slip that little cock of yours into me and I wouldn’t notice?”

George was getting a ripe eyeful of that slim circumcised penis through his tighty whities, pants already cast to the side as he made himself comfortable in the car’s passenger seat. As if the car itself wasn’t proof enough of the seriousness of this mission—a serious literary magazine had rented it for them, a real piece of American steel on wheels. It was enough to make a grown man hard. 

Gil, on the other hand, disgusted George. “I’m sorry, Georgie! I figured the drive to West Haven was short enough—”

 _“West Haven?_ You think we’re going to _Yale?”_ George scoffed. “No. We’re going to where the common man’s culture can truly thrive: the University of Connecticut.”

“Oh. Still, I thought you liked driving.”

“I did. _Before you let me get into the fucking ether!”_

Already, George felt himself and his body disconnecting. It was a nasty drug, really, but one should never enter a place like the Provisions State without a diverse supply of mind-altering substances, all paid for with the stipend provided by the literary magazine. It was all but expected of George.

An ether-leaded foot was a good way to attract the attention of police, though, especially coming out of the city with a suitcase full of said drugs and a young Indian boy in the backseat.

“Ravi, be a dear and grab the poppers for me, are you familiar?” Gil says. “Oh, and the salt shaker while we’re at it. Don’t touch anything else, though, George tells me you had your own money for this trip.”

“He does, and that’s why he could have found his own transportation, too,” George wanted to snap, but instead all that came out was a slurred groan. 

As it was, the boy wasn’t all that puerile, but the alternative was that, if Ravi’s unlined face and naturally toned body was what a young man looked like, then it was possible that George could no longer claim to be the same. On one hand, the idea suited him—he had great contempt for yippies and a love for power, something that tended to accumulate with age. On the other, he was an extremely vain man.

“I’m good, thank you,” Ravi replied with a surprisingly clean accent—and since when has the U.S. been letting in Indians to become photographers, surely the city is already overflowing with the sort—but George watched closely as Ravi riffled through the suitcase behind his head. Multiple times already George had attempted to fire the man. Every time George was dismissed; the decision was apparently above his head.

Despite his distrust, the ampoules and the cocaine made it to the front seat without incident. “Here, this will make you feel better,” Gil said as he passed along the former, and, indeed, they were exactly what George needed to loosen him up. Two hours still stood between him and Storrs, and there was no knowing what sort of amateur hour press registration was going to be. He will _not_ be fucked out of his pre-paid suite, not by Gil’s incompetence, Hell, high water, or American shad raining down from above.

* * *

It was hard to pinpoint which psychedelic had George within its grasp by the time he parked the Mustang, nor was it ever something that seemed of particular importance when one was swimming upstream towards the Inn at Mansfield. 

George left New England for a reason, yes he did. Connecticut lockjaw was not his type of lockjaw. It sickened him, to have to explain himself to a copperhead dressed like a 50s housewife ready to throw herself from the roof. “As I said, St. Geegland is the name, George. It should be on the list. The magazine should have set this up, along with a generous per diem. My assistant, Gil Faizon, will be joining me and is owed equal privileges. The photographer, I lay no claim to. Personally, I don’t trust him, and when the cops he called arrive, I suggest you direct them towards his room. You know what they say about those with a guilty conscience.”

That was what George meant to say, and he felt confident of his delivery despite the devilish cocktail simmering in his bloodstream and contorting his tongue, but Gil inserted himself to say, “Charmed I’m sure, Gil Faizon. Excuse my friend, he’s on some new medication. Thank you so much for your patience.”

Then his limp-noodle body somehow managed to drag George up from the ground and towards the elevator. 

George deeply resented the action. Who was Gil, to act like his mind and body was better than George’s? Was George alone in this vibrating hell pit?

“Let’s finish off the cocaine,” George said once they were securely locked within the suite. 

“Oh, that sounds delightful!” Gil crooned. It’d be a shame to run out so early in the trip, but Gil bordering on coherent was simply not something George could allow. 

Once the powder was dealt with, George retrieved the blotter paper and had Gil hold two tablets under his tongue until the clock struck twelve—whether this meant noon or midnight had already been lost to them.

After the U.S. military had made its determination to lose clear by turning George away from service, he’d spent some time with the enemy in San Francisco, where a hippie had licked LSD straight off of George’s cock then sucked him clean in the middle of the men’s bathroom. The 60s may have died with the Kennedy’s, the fall of Ali and the rise of Nixon, and those first tender tangos with nirvana may have blistered and peeled back, but with enough time, dedication, and force, a man could still train another man into acting like his cock shot daisies. This was before Viagra, both in its invention and its permanent place among George and Gil’s collection—the dark period between the two—and it made George feel powerful and strong to watch his engorged cock plunder Gil’s hairy ass, softened by his general physique and the amyl. 

* * *

George could not say for sure whether he slept that night, but by the time he and his assistants wandered onto campus the following day, he was fully reloaded with amphetamines, ketamine, and mescaline for flavor. It was the only thing making this wretched place tolerable. Too many trees. Clean air. In a year’s time, George would be quite convinced that Ira Levin plagiarized him in writing about what too much time there could do to a person, but in the moment there was little else to do but maintain the appearance of having already been indoctrinated and keep away from the lizards slithering around him. Gil had a firm grasp on his forearm, but this was to be excepted; the man was prone to wandering off and finding himself dick deep in holes never meant for mankind. This was a compromise to keep him from doing anything as queer as hold George’s hand in public. 

Ravi was also still following them, or perhaps leading the way. This could not be avoided despite George’s best efforts. The CIA would be on them any moment.

God, was George sweating. He felt as if he could slide the rest of the way to wherever it was they were going, some vulgarian thespian giving hope to some other failures who couldn’t quite penetrate the city. Why George himself was there he couldn’t say—if anyone but the literary magazine had asked, he would have laughed in their face, but as it was, a byline there was exactly the sort of thing George needed to catch the attention of the big fish of New York, who always loved to read about their peers judging those below them. And the money was good.

The hand on his arm tightened. Gil said, voice pathetic, “I think I’m going to be sick. Why did we have to do the mescaline?”

“Shut the fuck up, you are not going to be sick,” George said. “You are not a child. I did not force you to take the mescaline, and now you’re going to hold your ground like a man.”

Gil groaned again but did not protest again as George kept them marching onward. Yes, the convention. A short and sweet piece on the edge of glory, and falling off. Finding wherever the college kids scored in this pit. It was important to keep one's priorities in mind. Horrible things could creep into one’s peripheral if they didn’t stay sharp.

  
  


The talk was even worse than George could have imagined. Nevermind the spinning pulsing terrific energy shaking the very bones of reality. None of that heated George as much as what stood in front of him then.

Alan fucking Alda. The fucking nerve on some people.

Gil, of course, was transfixed. Enthralled. He always got that way, like a raccoon in heat, when placed in front of what could be considered a legitimate Broadway actor. As if this man wasn’t competition. George was disgusted. George was enraged. George was two seconds from a full freakout. And he had no patience by the time they were emptying back into the lobby—nor any memory of the last hour or so, but that was why they kept the tape recorder on them.

“Oh, Georgie, I don’t think I can do this,” Gil said. “Can we just leave? We should leave.”

“We need the quotes, Gil. Otherwise we could have just sat at home.”

“But isn’t the transcribing and the interviewing supposed to be your job? I’m an actor, not a journalist.”

“And I’m a fucking writer!” George yelled. “You think I have the fucking bandwidth to deal with your kind in this trying state? What’s the problem? Suddenly scared your crush will be too obvious?”

“No! I-at _most,_ I was thinking maybe I could ask him for some advice?” Gil’s face was already red, but seeing it still incited George further. Not since being turned away from the enlistment office had George felt such pure, untapped potential for violence. 

He continued, “Oh, so you think you’ll ever be better than him? Than anyone else in this room? Fine, then. Go. See if you can absorb the life and energy and talent out of yet another true artist.”

George watched as Gil lurched off, recorder in hand, then turned to Ravi and hissed, “This is the American Dream, Ravi. This is what you left the land of the Buddha for—some fucking Fordham fruitcake who thinks anyone will be entertained by America’s last winning battle against Oriental communism. Learn to read the fucking room.”

“I was actually born in New Jersey,” Ravi responded easily as he wrangled a second camera from around his neck, “and my parents are Hindus from East Pakistan, which just recently won its independence after an eight-month civil war and a genocide that saw upwards of three million civilian deaths.”

But George’s attention had already been lost. Even from across the room, George could read the startled expression on Alda’s face—an obviously Italian face, who did he think he was fooling—and the queasiness that was overtaking Gil’s. Granted, queasy was more or less Gil’s default, even back then, but George knew every single shade of green Gil could hold, and this was a good one. _Ravi_ should have his camera ready, along with every spy plane flying above them. This would be the moment where both Alda and Gil learned their lesson. _Nobody_ fucked George St. Geegland. 

George quickened his step. He wanted a front-row seat. His hands burned. Why did it have to go untapped, anyway? Mescaline could open so many doors for a man, in his mind and his stomach.

  
  


George watched contently as Gil finished his business in the nearby shrubberies. “There, there,” he said. “We all knew that was going to happen sooner or later.”

“I’m freaking out, man,” Gil said as he disgorged. 

“We have some hyoscine back at the hotel if you can pull yourself together for ten minutes.”

“No. I need to leave. I can’t—this place. It’s so horrible.”

“Of course, it’s horrible! That’s the point! What about my transcripts? The assignment? None of that matters anymore because you were yourself all over Alan Alda?” George waited for his answer, but a man can only watch another man sob into his own vomit bush for so long before he snapped. He cursed as he fumbled getting his wallet out of his pocket then threw the remaining cash there at Gil’s head, which remained a deeply unsatisfying experience as the bills just sort of flittered down into the mess. “You know what, Faizon, fine! If alone is what you want, alone you shall be. But I can see a shitty little college town bar from right here, and I’m going to go in there and quote Greer at impressionable little co-eds until each and everyone one of them sleeps with me, and I’ll tell all of them that _my_ name is Gil Faizon incase any of them get into any trouble. It is the least that I deserve after you robbing me here tonight.”

Then George walked away, before the matters of his own vasectomy or their shared bank accounts could be raised. The abandonment stung deeply, but he knew that Gil would suffer worse from it. A fuck was the least George deserved right now. Once he was finished, he would return and mop Gil off the ground and they would both be better from the experience.

But first, he would return to the hotel room, where the suitcase was still stashed beneath the bed. A hole was beginning to cave in somewhere in the center of George’s chest, and he needed to fill it immediately before it demanded any serious attention. With what, he would determine after studying his options.

* * *

George had been robbed. That was what he would say if any of the hotel staff if they managed to stop him, and the literary magazine should anyone ask any questions about the state of the room. It would have to do, because even the truth was largely lost on him—perhaps the FBI had finally caught up with them. It would explain the miraculous disappearance of Ravi, the narc, and the much more distressing disappearance of Gil. No way would the man be able to hold steady through any sort of enhanced interrogation.

Then George comforted himself in the knowledge that, if the government had managed to recapture Gil, they would likely be much more interested in following up with that free-drugs-cum-mild-control business they’re all messed about than with George himself. In a rare moment, George was grateful for that detour of attention.

  
  


Bridgeport was ripping past George’s windows by the time he noticed the note stuffed beneath his own ass. It damn near made him drive off the side of the road. His mind raced with possibilities: a ransom note? Some sort of coded message? _A bill?_

The note was handwritten and immediately recognizable.

_Dearest Georgie,_

_Had to leeve. Call at_ —and then their own home phone number— _when you can._

 _Love,_ _  
__Gil Faizon ☺_

Gil had the handwriting of a child, the fucking autodidact. George spent five years studying under the finest calligraphers of the east coast. What did Gil even bring into this partnership? Even so, George’s heart stuttered painfully. Perhaps it was an arrhythmia. Desperation drove him towards quite the toxic mélange of leftovers before he set down this road.

He took the first exit, then pulled over at the first payphone. Ideally, he could have waited until he hit Greenwich or a rest stop. Foreign lands were no place to play games nor place sensitive phone calls. A great wave of anxiety crashed over George as the dial tone rang.

“Oh, hello! It’s Gil Faizon!” Gil answered, sounding chipper, almost sober, even.

George inhaled through his teeth. “Gil. What was the meaning of your note?”

“Georgie! Mostly I just wanted to hear from you, I know neither of us do distance well. But since I’ve been home, I lined up another gig for you! There’s a conference in New Haven about ich… icky thigh— icythosis? I think I have that, actually.”

“New Haven,” George repeated. “You wish for me to retreat back into this forgotten place?”

Gil told him the amount a much less impressive but more liquid magazine was willing to pay him for the coverage, and reminded him of their landlord’s illegal price hike after discovering them in his apartment rather than the original and now quite dead tenant. George said, “Oh. Then what the hell are you doing back at the apartment?”

“I told you, I needed to go home! It’s my weekend with Elan.”

 _“Elan?_ Who the hell is—” George’s mind raced. “Oh, right. The child.”

“My son, Georgie. Every eighth weekend. We agreed to it.”

“That was before we were working this particular eighth weekend. Can’t your horrible ex-wife take him back?” Gil hesitated, so George continued, “Put him on the line.”

There was a moment of shuffling until a younger, smaller nasal voice said, “Uncle George?”

“Elan, my boy! How do you feel about the subway?”

“… I like going places?”

“Good, good, the subway is great for going places. Tell me, how do you feel about going to places alone on the subway? Because my daughter is still a whiny little baby who needs to hold her mommy’s hand every time she goes anywhere. Are you a whiny little baby who needs to hold his mommy’s hand?”

“Uh,” the child replied, voice higher. “No?”

“That’s what I thought. Now, your daddy needs to come back to work so him and me and you and your horrible mother aren’t homeless by New Year’s, so what _you_ are going to do is be a big boy and tell your father that you’re going home. Then you can borrow a quarter from my desk for the fare. Not a penny more and not touch anything else, are we clear?”

“Okay?” he replied, but his voice was high enough that George could sense an incoming fit, so he turned the receiver away from his ear until the signature Faizon fussiness resolved itself. The boy had to be at least eight by now. George would just as soon leave him in the apartment altogether if he could be trusted to not burn the place down. 

George had been squinting at the sun for several minutes—it was burning him alive, he could feel it, and like hell was he going to look away from the enemy—by the time Gil came back on the line. “George? Elan’s going back to Francine’s now, I guess.”

George exhaled in relief. “Get on the next train out here. But first, for the love of god, Gil, score some good shit.”

  
  


The conference was in fact on ichthyology, and it unfortunately drove George back onto campus. It was ridiculous. Hadn’t anyone ever heard of “out of the classroom, into the real world”? 

George had loved being a college student, actually. He dragged it out as long as he could—loved the feeling of being someone important at an important school, where he could be the one bestowing knowledge and marijuana onto any random anyone who stood too still. He slept with so many people. It was an energy he sought to recapture at every opportunity.

But Yale was different. It rejected him then as it did as a young man just trying to make it out of Rhode Island. The men were stiff and too important for an artform as trivial as penmanship. The women of Yale know they are smarter than him, and that that made them better than him, and this scared George. These were the unbearable truths a man was forced to endure as he sweated out the ass-end of $300 worth of narcotics. That, and the effects of upcurrent pollution on the Housatonic, Quinnipiac, and Connecticut rivers. It was unbearable. They all should have listened to dear Rachel Carson so much sooner, may she rest in peace.

The shame and the horror of it all had George near tears by the time Gil finally arrived, tape recorder and drugs in hand. “You are my savior, Gil Faizon.”

Gil preened. They were tucked into a back table that was unfitting for a creative duo of their magnitude but was perfect for snorting rails of whatever Gil laid down in front of George.

It was not cocaine. George assumed it would be, because it usually was with Gil, but it was not. He blinked. ‘What is this? What have you drugged me with?”

“What can I tell you, Manhattan has run dry of the white stuff—”

_“Impossible.”_

“—and we still haven’t received payment for either of these jobs, except for the stipend. But this is just as good. They extract it from the mighty albacore.”

George blinked again. The ichthyologists had taught him much in the last few hours. “What, like fatty acids? Am I snorting omega-3s? You spent our hard-earned money on this?”

“No no no. I mean, yes. You’re not letting me explain it, and I’m already forgetting what the guy told me. Fish oil comes from prey. But since the albacore is a predator and it gets so big, it, like, absorbs its environment. And what’s mostly in its environment right now is an incredible amount of drugs and chemical waste and things of that nature. Having all that compacted into a single fish makes it terrible as a source of food, but as a source of, well, more drugs…” 

Already a flood had rained down within George’s ears. It felt as if he was tipping over Niagara Falls, the roar of the water, its spray hitting his face, then the pressure forcing him down, down into Lake Ontario. Except the Great Lakes didn’t get fish like these. A carp, a sturgeon, a muskie if you’re nasty, but what George saw swimming before his very eyes was nothing of the sort. Where a respectable nerd once stood on stage was now a great white, and this entire city was going to go under, and they were all going to be eaten alive. The smell of salt was overwhelming.

“Oh, Gil, what have you done to me,” George said, although already his friend was gone, morphing into something else. “This is… entirely too much tuna.”

  
  


George regained awareness an unknowable number of hours or days later sprawled at the foot of a queen-sized bed to the tune of a few horrific guitar notes, followed by, _“Jeremiah was a bullfrog, was a good friend of mine…”_

Unsure of his own humanity but certain that he would never willingly hear the entirety of that song again, he slithered toward the origin of the sound. Once in the bathroom, several things became overwhelmingly obvious: the scent of tuna, most likely coming from the dozens of tins thrown about; the tape recorder playing the horrible track, still plugged into the wall; Gil himself, George’s dearest friend, dazed, holding the last of the Posideon’s cursed jism and the tape recorder just inches above his bath water.

He had to act fast, so he did, grabbing both the tape recorder and a wayward tin of tuna. This was not a particularly challenging task—Gil made George seem as sober as a saint. “What do you think you’re doing?” George demanded.

“I just want the high,” Gil whined.

“We cannot afford that kind of high, friend. Makes people ask questions.” 

Gil whined again, and this time it actually sounded like something desperate. It occurred to George that perhaps this weekend hadn’t been a particularly enjoyable one. That, despite their mutual appreciation for a good bender, this might have been a bit of a mess. George watched as Gil made a motion to get into the tuna powder again and realized _that_ was the source of their problem. Once it was taken care of, they’d be right as rain. 

“Alright,” George interjected quickly, and Gil glanced up, distracted. His face was a blur beneath wet, weighed down curls. Even his grays, which were plentiful, seemed hidden, and it made him seem uncomfortably young—but that made sense, right? There was still time for them to make something of themselves. “You want a high, right? Ain’t no high like the chorus.”

Gil nodded, pleased, then sunk down until only his head was above the waterline. It seemed likely that his free hand was palming his dick. George hated that he knew the song as well as he did as the moment approached. Even if he didn’t, he could probably judge by the fluttering of Gil’s eyelashes.

Then, just the choir was getting into, _“Joy to the fishes in the deep blue sea, joy to you and me—”_ George beamed the tuna tin at Gil. Athletics had never been George’s strong suit, but the tin hit Gil square in the forehead. He flailed hard, splashing more water into the floor but, more importantly, the dimebag into the remaining water. George felt a deep satisfaction as the last of their problems dissolved away, and then felt something that he could not identify as guilt when blood began to stream from the small knick in Gil’s head.

Without really thinking about it, George felt himself climbing into the tub. The remains of his clothing were already uncomfortable and became more so once wet, but his focus was on Gil. “Hey. No head wounds. We don’t need any more daughters around here.”

“You _threw_ the tuna at me.” Gil’s eyes were watery, but it was hard to pinpoint the exact deviation from normal. The pain wouldn’t likely set in until they were comfortably back in the apartment, and only then if they didn’t manage to score something more legitimate. 

“I’d do it again,” George said. He raised a hand to Gil’s neck then tightened it there, not enough to choke—George was very familiar with the necessary pressure—but to keep him in place. George wasn’t sure if it was his own heartbeat or Gil’s that he felt in his palm. “Don’t you _ever_ think of leaving me again. We are going to die old and gray and at the same time and I don’t care if I have to make it look like an accident to make it happen.”

If Gil had a complaint or objection, George didn’t hear it before he brought their mouths together. It was more of a compression than a kiss, something that forced so much as air out from between them, but it worked for them both nonetheless.

**Author's Note:**

> Content warnings include but are likely not limited to: Copious drug use and abuse, deeply unhealthy work and life relationships, the protagonist being a bit of a racist, homophobic taunts, emetophobia, the protagonist being a bit of a sexist, bullying then neglecting a child, someone who is high out of his gourd engaging in what appears to be suicidal behavior, partner violence


End file.
